One of the benefits of an oVirt implementation is a robust REST API delivered through the oVirt Engine. This permits developers or sysadmins the ability to use custom scripts or integrate third party applications which can issue the REST calls. A REST client sends a request with standard HTTP methods: GET, POST, PUT, and DELETE. The oVirt API uses HTTPS with client software which requires obtaining the CA certificate from the oVirt Engine and importing into the client host/browser. Authentication requires either OAuth or basic authentication, though OAuth is preferred since as of oVirt 4.0 basic is deprecated. Once the user obtains the bearer token, it can be used to make calls.
For example, a popular REST client is Postman, a software that has both a free and paid version. Using the free version, the user can still make any REST calls to the oVirt environment. The steps are as follows:
https://<FQDN of oVirt Engine>/ovirt-engine/sso/oauth/token?grant_type=password&scope=ovirt-app-api&username=admin@ovirt@internalsso&password=<password>
Note that the token itself is time sensitive and will expire. Expiration results in an HTTP/1.1 401 Unauthorized error. At that point, the user should re-run the step in Figure 78 and obtain a new token. To avoid expiration, the user can add a Pre-request script for the token, and thus every REST call would get a valid token. Using the oVirt REST a customer could manage the entire environment without a UI if they so wanted.